Rune Matrix: Programming Magic After Transmigration-Chapter 122: Armour
A few minutes later, Zephyr found himself standing near the center of the village. Just a few meters in front of him was a hole a couple of dozen meters wide. Nearby, he saw the debris of the broken stone platform.
"No one died," he commented after scouring the area.
There were no bloodstains, corpses, or broken limbs lying around. The platform had collapsed without killing anyone.
"That’s kind of unusual."
Zephyr’s eyes moved to the abyssal pit nearby. He couldn’t see anything in it. The inside was black, covered by some kind of dark aura that absorbed light. Other than the smooth, polished edge around the pit, there was nothing noticeable.
"Should I..." Zephyr wondered aloud.
He was now certain that it was a dungeon entrance. So, he contemplated whether to enter it or not.
Considering what had happened to him a short while ago, Zephyr had reason to believe the people he was searching for had entered the dungeon. Not by force, but by their own volition.
When he was having thoughts of killing Tom and going berserk, he also wanted to enter the dungeon. It was as if the dungeon were calling to him.
A chill went down his spine thinking about it.
Zephyr straightened his back, causing the armor to flex.
"If everyone’s inside, should I enter?"
His eyes darted around, trying to find more clues about what was happening.
Suddenly, his eyes focused on an object near the collapsed stone platform.
Zephyr took a few steps forward, crouching next to it. Taking a deep breath, he moved his hand forward, wiping away the dirt covering it.
The object was visible now. It was a simple wooden doll, carved from a discarded tree branch.
His fingers, covered in armor, touched the finger of the doll sticking out of the ground.
"Sigh." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖
He sighed again, his expression turning grim. He knew where he had seen it before. For some reason, the memory was vivid.
Zephyr couldn’t take his eyes off the wooden doll, made to look like a little girl. The loose, one-piece dress it was wearing, made out of rough linen cloth, reminded him of the owner.
"Everyone means... everyone. Women, children, men, dogs, other pets. Everything in this village," he mumbled.
The doll’s owner was a child he met when they searched for Tom. She had been playing with her friend, tightly clutching the doll in her hand. To the child, it must have been a precious toy.
Zephyr picked up the doll and dusted off the soil sticking to it. He didn’t want something so precious to be lost. Carefully cleaning the doll, he stepped away to unearth something a few meters away.
This time, what he saw was a musical instrument—something akin to a guitar with strings stretched along its length. Now, the strings were broken. He carefully picked it up, dusting the soil off it. Having two arms clearly helped him this time.
After dusting off the soil, he read the oddly etched characters on its side. It must have been the name of a villager. He didn’t know the person, but they must have brought the musical instrument along when they were evacuated onto the stone platform before the fire was lit.
"It looks important, too," he mumbled, placing both the doll and the musical instrument to the side.
Both of them constantly reminded him of the fucked-up situation. Though Zephyr tried to detach himself by suppressing his emotions, his heart turned heavy. Last time, when the necromancer was trying to kill the villagers, a similar suffocating feeling had consumed him. It was an unpleasant feeling.
’I have no option left,’ Zephyr mumbled, standing up.
Entering the dungeon was not a great idea, but he wanted to do it. Not to save everyone, and not to be a hero, but to find some peace of mind.
"According to the game, dungeons are not just caves. They are a living environment that constantly changes and evolves. Anything that dies within it will become its source of food, powering its evolution."
"The more death... the better."
"It attracts all kinds of creatures since the mana quality and quantity within a dungeon are superior. This fuels the conflict within."
Zephyr looked down at the giant abyssal hole.
"Humans are interested in dungeons because of the rare resources they can mine, the monsters and mana beasts they can hunt, and the rare plants and herbs that grow inside."
"Simply put, it’s a dangerous place that also rewards you for exploring it," Zephyr said to himself, taking a step towards it.
"It most likely is a natural dungeon. It forms naturally and disappears naturally over time. The game has no dungeon-clearing mechanism for natural dungeons."
Zephyr concluded it was a natural dungeon because he didn’t see anything that could terraform the land to create it. And if there were a creature that could create a dungeon, he would have been dead already.
"But something must be occupying the dungeon. Most likely a creature that can influence the minds of others."
"If I enter it, I will be targeted by everything and everyone inside. Even those whom I consider allies."
Aurelia’s and Elenor’s faces flashed before him. Two intermediate mages as enemies—the odds were clearly stacked against him.
Fortunately, the mask had awakened somehow and given him strong armor. He felt safe inside it. He was pretty sure it could hold out against goblins or other low-level monsters just fine. If there were more berserk rabbits within, he could just walk through their horde without fearing they would injure him.
So, he had some confidence in keeping himself alive.
Zephyr took a deep breath, diving into his mindscape. Spinning inside were his cores—over two thousand of them—clustered together and arranged according to the spell, filled with mana.
Some distance away, he saw the silvery mask glowing slightly. The glow hadn’t decreased or changed since the last time he looked at it. Initially, when the armor appeared, Zephyr felt a mana stream flowing into his body. Inside his mindscape, there was no stream or anything like that.
’I need to be sure of it,’ Zephyr thought, considering deactivating the armor.
He hadn’t dared try it before because there could have been dangerous creatures or even monsters within the village. Now, after walking around for a while, he was sure that there was no danger and thought of deactivating the armor.
Immediately, Zephyr felt a connection snap within him. Like a string in tension snapping, a wave of mana was sucked from his mindscape into the mask. He noticed his mana cores dimmed a little. The mana flowed from them to the mask instantaneously. Sensing the mana quantity decrease, the mana-gathering spell kicked in, recovering the lost mana.
At the same time, Zephyr felt something crawl over his body. He watched the mask dim, returning to its dormant state, before he stopped meditating.
He opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was liquid metal drilling into his body. The armor disappeared almost instantaneously. If he had not been quick, he wouldn’t have even noticed the liquid metal.
Then he noticed the lack of an arm. The stump connected to his shoulder was back in its place. At the same time, he felt his body turn heavier. The enhancement of physical strength he had gained disappeared with the armor.
"It works one way. I can deactivate it. So, can I activate it again?" Zephyr mumbled, looking at his body. "If I can do it, I will explore the dungeon. If I fail to activate it, I will still explore. However, the second option comes with the caveat that I might die faster."
Zephyr chuckled.
"Armor that can appear and disappear. Liquid metal morphing Power Ranger. Ha." Zephyr lifted his foot, stomping the ground and taking a horse stance.
His shout was ineffective; the armor didn’t materialize.
"Ha!" he shouted again.
It didn’t work again.
"Well, what made me think shouting would work?"
He closed his eyes, trying to sense the mana of the mask again. The string of mana connecting him to the mask was broken. He tried to form one of his own and link with the mask. A thin strand of mana traveled from his core into the mask, touching and spreading over it.
Instantly, Zephyr felt a chill.
"TANG DANG GANG!"
Metal clicked into place over his body. The armor was activated again. This time, while it was being activated, a wave of mana was sucked into it.
"Activating and deactivating costs mana."
Zephyr looked at his half-empty mana pool. Activating or deactivating the armor costs one-fourth of his mana pool. The cost was low considering the impact it had.
Zephyr smiled happily.
—
A few meters away.
A man peeking out from the shadows of a hut turned to his side and asked, "Boss, what is a Power Ranger?"
He knew what metal and morphing meant, but the term Power Ranger was unfamiliar to him.
"Who knows," the other man shrugged.
The boss was a lean, muscular man with a scar on his left cheek. If Zephyr were here, he would have instantly recognized him as the shopkeeper he met at Viscount Whitewater’s fief.
